1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a support plate device for baked goods, pastries, or Viennese baked goods.
The present invention will find its application in the field of utensils and equipment for the production of baked goods, pastries, or Viennese baked goods or the like. It will find a very particular interest in the field of the plates used for conveying these products through various processing units, in particular during the stages of fermentation and baking.
In the field of bakery, the dough is subjected to a step of dividing into dough pieces, then of shaping of the latter, which are then deposited onto plates or into molds, used for transporting them, especially through a fermentation step and passing through the oven.
2. Description of Related Art Including Information Disclosed Under 37 CFR 1.97 and 37 CFR 1.98.
In particular, many products should preserve a well-determined specific shape during fermentation and during baking. To this end, they are placed inside molds having said desired shape at the level of the bottom and the periphery.
However, the molds are open in the upper portion, in order to permit their supply with dough pieces and the extraction of the products after baking. Therefore, the dough piece swells or “raises” during fermentation and baking, changing the upper aspect of the finished product.
In order to cope with this drawback, each mold is closed at the upper portion.
Examples of such a closing and locking of the cover of one single mold are disclosed in WO 95/24128 or DE 199 59 465. Such a locking can also be applied by one single cover on several molds at one time, namely as described in DE 297 08 638 or FR 2 682 262.
In addition, a springy restoring force can be applied from the top to the bottom, in order to maintain a downward pressure of the cover on all the molds at the same time.
In this framework, within the lines of industrial bakeries, it is customary to use “teams” of molds, which permit to convey a number of molds on one single support plate. Therefore, one single plate is applied for covering several molds at the same time, resting on the upper edges of said molds. Thus, the molds being closed, the upper swelling of the dough piece during its fermentation and its baking is continuous and limited.
But such a technique does not ensure the tightness and, after fermentation or baking, dough overflows are observed at the upper periphery of the product, which no longer has the desired shape and quality. These overflows are due to the fact that the upper rims of the edges of said molds are not completely joined to the plate. In brief, the tops of the molds are not all coplanar with each other, thus creating differences of level through which the dough escapes during fermentation or baking.
In order to cope with this problem, the solution currently used is to maintain the covering plate on the support plate resting on the molds, by applying a force suitable for pressing the upper surface of said covering plate against the upper edges of the molds. To this end, complex mechanical locking and clamping means are provided on both support and covering plates for applying at a plurality of points a force for clamping said plates to each other. The deformation and mechanical stresses so applied to the plates are supposed to ensure the tightness between the molds and said covering plate.
Again, burrs are after all observed, which are due to the fact that the upper edges of the molds are not co-planar and do not perfectly apply against the lower face of the covering plate. In addition, the mechanical and thermal stresses the molds and the plates are subjected to lead to deformations of the constituent materials during baking. Thus, the dough infiltrates through the smallest gaps, which are formed, despite the overall clamping force exerted between the plates.
In addition, the locking means are subjected to expansion during heating, which makes the separation of the plates difficult after baking. Finally, such means are expensive and of a high maintenance cost.